This invention relates generally to an animal lift, and more particularly to a portable, lightweight ramp with collapsible side panels to eliminate the visual cliff perceived by a user animal.
Various types of animal ramp apparatus have long been used for moving large animals from one elevation to another. Such apparatus include, for example, loading ramps made of wood, metal, cementitious materials, other types of materials, or some combination of materials, such as, for one example, a concrete ramp with metal rails on the sides. Some examples of typical usages for such devices include loading domesticated livestock into transport vehicles—such as cattle into rail cars or horses into horse trailers—or providing access between two different elevations for exotic large animals, such as tigers from a fabricated den out onto an enclosure floor, or hippopotamuses from a dry bank into a water pool. Some animals of more modest size still often require the use of some type of ramp apparatus for transport and/or elevational change. Relevant examples of such animals would be pigs and geese. In the vast majority of these instances, the lift device, or ramp, is stationary, due to the size, weight, and mass required to construct a device of sufficient substance to support the weight of the creatures who utilize it. One alternative to a stationary ramp is a semi-stationary ramp, such as a loading ramp attached to horse transport vehicles. Typically, these ramps are fixedly hinged to the end of the trailer and fold down to load or off-load the animal(s), then raise up and latch to the end of the trailer so the trailer is safely mobile.
The lift devices discussed above, however, are not designed for use in facilitating elevational change for companion animals. The above-described devices are impractical for use with pets, as those devices are too large, heavy, bulky or some combination of all three, plus those devices usually cannot be moved with any ease, nor can they be easily adapted to residential-based use or automobile-based use.
The need for a lightweight portable lift device for pets has increased dramatically in recent years. There are several reasons for this rise.
First, older pets are no longer viewed as expendable by many human owners. Instead of euthanizing a geriatric pet who may have mobility limitations, oftentimes owners seek various devices that can assist their pet so as to maximize the quality of life for both animal and owner, such as, in some instances, detachable wheels that may be strapped to the animal to provide a mechanical means of independent movement when one or more limbs are no longer functional. Examples of instances when a lightweight portable lift device is of particular use would be assisting a pet's ingress and egress from a vehicle or a home. In similar fashion, such a device could be extremely useful within the home, for allowing the pet to change elevations, such as from the floor to a sofa, chair, etc.
Second, companion animals are viewed as life-enhancing to many humans, even when the human him/herself is physically impaired so as to be unable to lift a pet—irrespective of the pet's age and/or physical abilities—into and out of a vehicle, onto and off of an elevated surface, such as grooming table, etc.
One significant challenge when utilizing a lift device for elevation change with pets or companion animals is the animal's natural disposition to avoid a perceived “visual cliff.” This phenomenon is triggered by a perceived fear of falling off the edge of an elevated surface and is often exhibited as fear and aversion to accessing the elevated surface. Most animals have this natural aversion to visual cliff stimulus, such as ramps, stairs, lifts, ledges and edges (e.g., table edges); this aversion is often manifested in the animal in such physiological and psychological responses such as elevated breathing, panting, crouching, scratching, clawing, or pawing, shaking, shivering, pulling away from a handler, and/or complete immobility. In certain circumstances with pets and companion animals, such as on a veterinary examination table, the aversion to visual cliff stimuli may be utilized to effectively immobilize the pet during an examination without additional restraints and/or anesthesia. However, for purposes of daily elevational changes, such as, for one example, loading a dog into and out of a car to take it to a dog park for daily exercise, there exists a need for a lightweight portable lift device that overcomes a user animal's fear of the visual cliff and that pet owners can use with relative ease.